In Reply to: I have a friend in bali that has been posted by inmyblood on Sunday, 26. June 2005 at 12:51 Bali Time:
My husband and I met a Balinese guy 14 years ago and we've been friends ever since. We've helped to support his family through a few crisis's over the years and thought nothing of it at the time. Afterwards he told a few of our friends that we had literally saved his life...which we didn't know at the time as we only gave him around $150USD. In recent visits he has been embarassed that he was not able to reciprocate our 'gifts' to him and we assured him that the best gift to us was his friendship. From his side it has been so genuine that we have never questioned our 'support' of him and his family. We have gotten way more benefit from our relationship with him that he could ever get from us...and for those of you who have had this experience you will know what we mean.
I guess in the end you will have to decide if you have a good 'gut' feeling or not. I think there are genuine people in every country and maybe we just got lucky meeting an incredible Balinese guy many years ago. I have had so many 'payback's' from him over the years that cannot be measured in dollar amounts that we feel the relationship has been mutually beneficial for both families.
Everytime we go to Bali we have a comfort level knowing that our 'friend' is there for us. We've also been able to experience his Balinese knowledge and for us it's been such a wonderful relationship
that I can't imagine going to Bali without seeing him.
We initialy met our Balinese friend in 1999 and he was our tour guide for a day tour. There has never been any pressure from him at all. Over the years we have given him lots of 'support' but never felt pressured to do so.
In the end, you need to decide if this is a good 'relationship' or not. You probably already know if you want to continue with this person...listen to your heart. That's how the genunine Balinese people would want you to be their friend.
If it doesn't feel right, then it probably isn't.
Good luck,
Cathy (Canada)